It was daylight, but not yet sunrise. The sleep had done him good. His head ached less, and he felt more in command of his nerve. The Indian boy produced tea, some fragments of pork, and some very hard bread; and the food still further restored Tom’s strength. He was eager to intercept his father, however, and they had no sooner eaten than they took to the canoe again, and dropped down the river to a point where Mr. Jackson would surely pass in coming over the trail from Ormond.
Here, for hour after hour, they waited, watchful alike for friends and for enemies, for Tom more than half expected to espy McLeod scouting down the river shore to prepare some ambush. Tom’s head still ached, but the effects of the blow were fast passing, and under frequent applications of cold water the swelling was going down. They ate a cold lunch, not venturing to light a fire, but it was not until well into the afternoon that Charlie suddenly sat up alertly from the ground where he was lounging.
“Somebody come!” he said in a low voice, staring into the woods.
Tom had heard nothing, and in fact it was nearly ten minutes before he heard trampling and crashing in the undergrowth. The sound instantly reassured him. Harrison’s scouts would not have made so much noise and in fact within a few minutes a party emerged upon the shore a few yards below. In the first two figures Tom recognized his father and “Big Joe” Lynch.
There were four other men with them. Tom burst out from the woods and rushed down to meet the new-comers, followed by Charlie. He was recognized from a distance; there was a waving and a calling of greetings. Tom grasped his father’s hand; then he found himself, being hailed by two others of the party, whom he finally recognized to be Uncle Phil and Cousin Ed.
“Is it all right? We couldn’t—” Mr. Jackson began.
“We missed you yesterday,” put in Ed, a wiry young fellow a year younger than Tom. “But we started out to catch Uncle Matt on the trail this morning.”
“Found him broken down,” said Phil Jackson.
“Yes,” said Tom’s father. “The wagon couldn’t get on very fast. Had to stop and chop the trail. We left three of the men to bring it up, and the rest of us came along on foot. I was getting uneasy about you. How did you find things? Why, what’s the matter with your head?”
“A collision with Mr. Harrison,” said Tom; and he rapidly described his misadventures of the night. Mr. Jackson’s face turned grim as he listened.